I can only speak from my own experience as well, but I think the reason you (and lots of people who were never believers) can't fathom this is because you haven't seen the world through the eyes of indoctrination.

As a non-believer now, when I look back on my life in the church, I see a vast sea of indoctrination and ignorance. I think indoctrination plays the biggest role in creating the ignorance.

The indoctrination of the church drills into your brain that the church is infallible and the source of all answers. It becomes so strong that those who are under its spell don't look to other sources for answers. They already have the answer, and the answer is God. Any other answers are immediately rejected due to the massive cognitive dissonance that is created when the answers contradict. Confirmation bias also plays a big role in it.

So, here along comes this thing called "science". Science says X, but your pastor told you Y. First the cognitive dissonance hits, your brain knows they are mutually exclusive ideas, so it will only accept one of them as truth. When you've been told your entire life that what your pastor tells you is always true, your brain will weigh that fact heavily in the decision. For most matters, it's not even a contest. They do the mental equivalent of "LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" and the new information never gets a chance to set in.

"It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled" - Mark Twain

This is especially true of those who have been told that they have a direct communicative link with the creator of the universe. Thinking in those terms, who would you believe? An omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent guy who is your buddy, or some dude you've never met that claims your buddy is wrong?

Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up.

"Let me give you some advice, bastard: never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you." - Tyrion Lannister

(06-02-2014 03:51 PM)itsnotmeitsyou Wrote: I can only speak from my own experience as well, but I think the reason you (and lots of people who were never believers) can't fathom this is because you haven't seen the world through the eyes of indoctrination.

As a non-believer now, when I look back on my life in the church, I see a vast sea of indoctrination and ignorance. I think indoctrination plays the biggest role in creating the ignorance.

The indoctrination of the church drills into your brain that the church is infallible and the source of all answers. It becomes so strong that those who are under its spell don't look to other sources for answers. They already have the answer, and the answer is God. Any other answers are immediately rejected due to the massive cognitive dissonance that is created when the answers contradict. Confirmation bias also plays a big role in it.

So, here along comes this thing called "science". Science says X, but your pastor told you Y. First the cognitive dissonance hits, your brain knows they are mutually exclusive ideas, so it will only accept one of them as truth. When you've been told your entire life that what your pastor tells you is always true, your brain will weigh that fact heavily in the decision. For most matters, it's not even a contest. They do the mental equivalent of "LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" and the new information never gets a chance to set in.

"It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled" - Mark Twain

This is especially true of those who have been told that they have a direct communicative link with the creator of the universe. Thinking in those terms, who would you believe? An omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent guy who is your buddy, or some dude you've never met that claims your buddy is wrong?

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I must point out that I was actually indoctrinated as a child but I don't really remember what it was like. I get your larger point though.

(06-02-2014 03:51 PM)itsnotmeitsyou Wrote: I can only speak from my own experience as well, but I think the reason you (and lots of people who were never believers) can't fathom this is because you haven't seen the world through the eyes of indoctrination.

As a non-believer now, when I look back on my life in the church, I see a vast sea of indoctrination and ignorance. I think indoctrination plays the biggest role in creating the ignorance.

The indoctrination of the church drills into your brain that the church is infallible and the source of all answers. It becomes so strong that those who are under its spell don't look to other sources for answers. They already have the answer, and the answer is God. Any other answers are immediately rejected due to the massive cognitive dissonance that is created when the answers contradict. Confirmation bias also plays a big role in it.

So, here along comes this thing called "science". Science says X, but your pastor told you Y. First the cognitive dissonance hits, your brain knows they are mutually exclusive ideas, so it will only accept one of them as truth. When you've been told your entire life that what your pastor tells you is always true, your brain will weigh that fact heavily in the decision. For most matters, it's not even a contest. They do the mental equivalent of "LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" and the new information never gets a chance to set in.

"It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled" - Mark Twain

This is especially true of those who have been told that they have a direct communicative link with the creator of the universe. Thinking in those terms, who would you believe? An omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent guy who is your buddy, or some dude you've never met that claims your buddy is wrong?

Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I must point out that I was actually indoctrinated as a child but I don't really remember what it was like. I get your larger point though.

The indoctrination needs to be constant and continuing in order to keep hold. That's why churches want you to come 3 times a week.

The indoctrination was the biggest hurdle I had to overcome and I wasn't able to fully get it out of my system until I was a legal adult and my parents couldn't force me to go to church any more. When I was young, I had expressed some mild doubt about the validity of the bible due the fact that there were no dinosaurs in it. It was about that time, after a home visit from the pastor, that my parents began sending me to church more than once a week. Prior, it was a Sunday morning thing and that was it. It ramped up to add Sunday night to reinforce what was "learned" in the morning, and youth groups on Wednesday and Thursday nights so I didn't have to wait another week to get my indoctrination. I became the most devout I have ever been around that time. It wasn't until a few years later that I had an atheist friend who started challenging what I "knew" that the indoctrination started to slip.

This is why so many Christians are terrified of atheists. It's why the church vilifies us as worse than murderers and rapists and makes up stupid crap like "they're all devil worshippers". They want to keep the flock away from any source that could provide a different viewpoint than theirs, so they tell their flock that these people are possessed or that they follow the devil's path, etc. I can remember vividly being told that if I hung out with atheists, the devil would claim my soul for himself and I would burn for eternity. Just for associating with them. It's not difficult to see why believers would avoid anything associated with atheism.

Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up.

"Let me give you some advice, bastard: never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you." - Tyrion Lannister

(06-02-2014 04:00 PM)Drunkin Druid Wrote: Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I must point out that I was actually indoctrinated as a child but I don't really remember what it was like. I get your larger point though.

The indoctrination needs to be constant and continuing in order to keep hold. That's why churches want you to come 3 times a week.

The indoctrination was the biggest hurdle I had to overcome and I wasn't able to fully get it out of my system until I was a legal adult and my parents couldn't force me to go to church any more. When I was young, I had expressed some mild doubt about the validity of the bible due the fact that there were no dinosaurs in it. It was about that time, after a home visit from the pastor, that my parents began sending me to church more than once a week. Prior, it was a Sunday morning thing and that was it. It ramped up to add Sunday night to reinforce what was "learned" in the morning, and youth groups on Wednesday and Thursday nights so I didn't have to wait another week to get my indoctrination. I became the most devout I have ever been around that time. It wasn't until a few years later that I had an atheist friend who started challenging what I "knew" that the indoctrination started to slip.

This is why so many Christians are terrified of atheists. It's why the church vilifies us as worse than murderers and rapists and makes up stupid crap like "they're all devil worshippers". They want to keep the flock away from any source that could provide a different viewpoint than theirs, so they tell their flock that these people are possessed or that they follow the devil's path, etc. I can remember vividly being told that if I hung out with atheists, the devil would claim my soul for himself and I would burn for eternity. Just for associating with them. It's not difficult to see why believers would avoid anything associated with atheism.

It's interesting how someones religion can determine just where they were born. Think about the indoctrination, when you tell a child something absurd, they will believe it. Evolution has made babies believe anything they are told, there just isn't enough time to tell a child to not go to the edge of a cliff, it is dangerous. Evolution/natural selection has made it so that the child does as told so that they do not experiment things like, "Oh, my parents told me not to put my finger in a candle flame but I want to see what happens."

You could play devils advocate and say that some people aren't religious and then they adopt faith, thus in direct opposition to the whole factor of being indoctrinated to have your beliefs follow you into a supposedly intellectually developed stage in your life, such as an adult. However, if I were to even begin to address this counter-view, I would first start off with saying, yes some people choose religion even though not being indoctrinated, but substantially less wouldn't you agree?

It has predominantly to do with indoctrination, most people are so brainwashed that by the time they are adults, they do not grow out of that childish thinking. Another big factor is wishful thinking. If I wish for something to be true hard enough, I will delude myself to think it is, and therefore reject anything that contradicts my view and so I become myopic.

I covered this wishful thinking issue more in depth in another post, but a quick summary is that people only believe because they make it true. I don't want my mom to die, and so I create the notion of ever-lasting life, being so stupid as to delude myself beyong comprehension to actually make it seem true to me.

(06-02-2014 04:28 PM)itsnotmeitsyou Wrote: The indoctrination needs to be constant and continuing in order to keep hold. That's why churches want you to come 3 times a week.

The indoctrination was the biggest hurdle I had to overcome and I wasn't able to fully get it out of my system until I was a legal adult and my parents couldn't force me to go to church any more. When I was young, I had expressed some mild doubt about the validity of the bible due the fact that there were no dinosaurs in it. It was about that time, after a home visit from the pastor, that my parents began sending me to church more than once a week. Prior, it was a Sunday morning thing and that was it. It ramped up to add Sunday night to reinforce what was "learned" in the morning, and youth groups on Wednesday and Thursday nights so I didn't have to wait another week to get my indoctrination. I became the most devout I have ever been around that time. It wasn't until a few years later that I had an atheist friend who started challenging what I "knew" that the indoctrination started to slip.

This is why so many Christians are terrified of atheists. It's why the church vilifies us as worse than murderers and rapists and makes up stupid crap like "they're all devil worshippers". They want to keep the flock away from any source that could provide a different viewpoint than theirs, so they tell their flock that these people are possessed or that they follow the devil's path, etc. I can remember vividly being told that if I hung out with atheists, the devil would claim my soul for himself and I would burn for eternity. Just for associating with them. It's not difficult to see why believers would avoid anything associated with atheism.

I was an altar boy.....

How did your parents react to you giving up on faith at an early age? Or did they not know?

I can't speak to anything but my own experiences and indoctrination. Results may vary. Churches differ greatly in how hard they push indoctrination. My cousins, who were Methodist, hated the church my family went to. They thought they were too restrictive and pushy. I've also been to churches that made mine look downright secular.

Without knowing your entire history, I really can't say why you were able to resist the indoctrination. Perhaps you are just more inclined to skepticism. Maybe you had access to more or better information outside of the church.

This is why it's so hard to explain why people act the way they do. Everyone is a big ball of individual knowledge and experience that no one else can see. We sit alone at the center, peering out with each new experience tinted in our own unique hue.

Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up.

"Let me give you some advice, bastard: never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you." - Tyrion Lannister

How did your parents react to you giving up on faith at an early age? Or did they not know?

I can't speak to anything but my own experiences and indoctrination. Results may vary. Churches differ greatly in how hard they push indoctrination. My cousins, who were Methodist, hated the church my family went to. They thought they were too restrictive and pushy. I've also been to churches that made mine look downright secular.

Without knowing your entire history, I really can't say why you were able to resist the indoctrination. Perhaps you are just more inclined to skepticism. Maybe you had access to more or better information outside of the church.

This is why it's so hard to explain why people act the way they do. Everyone is a big ball of individual knowledge and experience that no one else can see. We sit alone at the center, peering out with each new experience tinted in our own unique hue.

Yes. That makes sense.
To answer your question my parents were pretty upset. They kept calling it a phase that I would grow out of. They are certainly prone to wishful thinking!

(06-02-2014 09:04 AM)Drunkin Druid Wrote: Many of you are new to this whole atheism thing and can probably answer this for me.
See I've been an atheist for some 25 years. I gave up on fantasy (Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, god) at a pretty young age. I gave up on god a little later than the others but it was young none the less.
I've been a nonbeliever for so long now that I hardly remember what it's like to believe. I was naive as a kid (as I'm sure most of us were) and believing things was easy.
But with age often comes wisdom and the more I learned the more ridicules the whole god thing seemed.
I can understand the deist point of view and wouldn't at all be surprised if it turned out to be correct. But the personal god nonsense and the bullshit dogma and all the magic is beyond me. By the way, when I first heard of creationists the idea blew my mind. There are people who believe in a literal account of the bible? No way!
The question:
Do adults really believe this stuff or am I missing something? You might think this isn't a serious post but I genuinely can not wrap my head around this idea!
Slightly edited ...

As far as adults believing in creationism? Yes, many of my family members, including my dad believe the earth is very young (my dad says something like 12,000 years). He really believes. I think it's because he came out of a screwed up alcoholic family. The people that influenced him when he was in his teens were YEC fundamentalist Christians that showed him a way out of alcoholism (with many relapses, by the way). In his mind it's either be a fundamentalist Christian, or go back to drinking.
As to the rest of my family members? It's just because it's what they've always been taught. It's confirmed every sunday when they go to church.